Tadaoki Hosokawa

Tadaoki Hosokawa (28 November 1563-18 January 1646) was the daimyo of the Hosokawa clan and a general of the Oda, Akechi, Toyotomi, Eastern Army, Fukushima, and Tokugawa clans.

Biography
Tadaoki was the eldest son of Fujitaka Hosokawa who fought his first battle, the Second Battle of Kizugawa, at the age of fifteen under the service of Nobunaga Oda. As a young man he married a woman named Tama, the third daughter of Oda retainer and Akechi daimyo Mitsuhide Akechi. In 1580 he was made the Lord of Tango Province by the Oda clan, but after the assassination of Nobunaga Oda at Honnoji in June 1582, the Hosokawa allied with the Nobunaga's killer Mitsuhide Akechi, Gracia's father.. At the Battle of Yamazaki, the Akechi were exterminated by Hideyoshi Hashiba, the daimyo of the Toyotomi clan and the sandal-bearer of Nobunaga. Tadaoki became a general of Hideyoshi and fought for him in the Battle of Komaki-Nagakute against Ieyasu Tokugawa in 1584. As a general of Hideyoshi, he began to experience problems: his wife Gracia had fought at Yamazaki in person, and Hideyoshi ordered him to kill her; he refused, and because he did not kill his wife yet still served Hideyoshi, there was a rift between him, his wife, and Hideyoshi. Eventually, with his reputation on the rocks, he attempted to assassinate his wife whenever he saw her but failed bitterly every time.

After participating in the Fall of Odawara in 1590, he became a friend of Ieyasu Tokugawa, as Ieyasu paid off debts owed to Hidetsugu Toyotomi for him. In 1600 he sided with Ieyasu during the Sekigahara Campaign, a civil war between the pro-Tokugawa clan Eastern Army and the Toyotomi loyalists of the Western Army. His wife told an assistant to kill her and her baby to prevent her from being taken hostage by Mitsunari Ishida's troops, who were taking captives from Kyoto, and this served to drive Tadaoki and many others into Ieyasu's camp. Angered that his wife had died, Tadaoki fought for Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara against the Western Army and was defeated, and as a reward Tadaoki was given the Kumamoto Domain in 1632.

At the age of 75, Tadaoki fought his last war during the Shimabara Rebellion against Shiro Amakusa's Christian rebels. The Siege of Shimabara was fought by Hosokawa himself, and it proved to be his ultimate fight. He died at the age of 83 in his domain.